I’m All Ears (har, har, har)

My iPod has become my lifeline.  I have to fill about 25 hours every week while I’m mindlessly typing hard at work.  At first I relied on my standbys: showtunes, audio books that friends had recommended, and a select few country artists.  Shut up.

It wasn’t enough, and every week since  I have thrown my nets a little wider, desperate to make the time go faster.  My horizons have expanded significantly (hey!  a thing I like about this job!  who knew?), but my playlist now looks like it belongs to a truly crazy person.  (If I were rich, I could be eccentric, according to Dennis Hopper.)  Some recent selections:

“Question” by the Old 97s

Podcasts about everything from technology to grammar

The Backyardigans and a reading of Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (my iPod does apparently have a secondary purpose)

When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris

Colin Meloy’s “Wonder”

“You Will Love This Song,” by Amber Rubarth

Jewel: “A Stronger Woman”

What’s on your playlist?  What else should I be listening to?

Do You Ever Feel…

that a rainy day in August is actually something of a relief?

After weeks of sunshine and perfect temperatures, I am glad to have a day inside.  It seems sacriligious, especially in Minnesota, to “waste” a summer day inside — it’d be something to regret in the dismal month of November or January.

So it’s nice of the weather to give us a day off so we don’t feel guilty for reading our new books all day.

Am Idiot

The kids woke up this morning before I got a chance to take a shower, so I decided to set them up with an activity to keep them busy for 10 minutes.

I chose fingerpaints.  Which I subsequently found on the bathroom door, the wall, and inside the spice drawer.

And the dumbest part (no, we haven’t gotten to it yet) is that it’s a nice day, and we do own a picnic table.

As moronic as this idea sounds actually was, I have had success with the art-as-unsupervised-distraction methodology in the past.  I’d say that window has closed.

Not That You’d Know It, but…

I have been on vacation.

My posting frequency is such that you’d probably never know I was gone.  I also managed to destroy my own post-vacation calm yesterday fighting with Raisin as she ignored everything I asked her to do, and then again during an eye doctor appointment that dragged on and almost made me late for work.

The vacation itself was excellent — see Flickr for proof.  Here are a couple of highlights:

Raisin bringing me a handful of clover blossoms, “so you’ll always remember that Jesus is in your heart.”

Apple’s first sentence, “Hi, Mama!”  (A wise choice.)

Orange and Apple greeting every train (the resort is near a crossing) by saying, “Woo-woo!”  One night, Orange couldn’t sleep, so I brought her out to cuddle with me for a little while.  She was exhausted and hiccuping from crying, but when the train went by she still managed a weak little “woo-woo!”  If you need lessons in devotion, look at a 2-year-old.

Splashing in the lake with my husband like a 16-year-old flirting with a boy she liked.  Also, trying to stay on top of this Moonwalk thing.  I don’t believe photographic evidence of my failure exists, but if it did it would be highly entertaining.

Consuming, almost exclusively, foods involving fat, salt, chocolate, alcohol, or some combination thereof, and very little that bore resemblance to anything found in nature.

It was good.

Maybe “Problem” is Too Strong a Word

Problem The First: Upon re-reading Siblings Without Rivalry, I was bothered by how many of the parents in their group seemed to blame their own parents for so many things.  The book has great suggestions, but I came away with this sense of, “If you fail to heed these warnings, your kids will hate you and their siblings.  Forever!  Mwa-ha-ha-ha.”

Problem The Second: It is embarrassing to catch yourself humming and wonder, “What is that song?”  And then to realize that it is, in fact, the Backyardigans’ “Nobody’s Bigger Than A Giant.”  This happens to me way too often.  I guess it’s fortunate that the lyrics of Backyardigans songs tend to be clever. 

Problem The Third: My approach to household chores is now basically a disaster-management system.  One day I discover that there is an un-ignorable odor in the back hall closet, so I clean that out.  A few days later, I observe that the weeds in the front flower bed are taller than my son, so I un-weed* it.  I would prefer to get back to a more preventative style, but I have no idea how to do that in our present situation.

Problem The Fourth: I am, like most of my peers I think, not getting enough sleep.  But on my non-work nights, when the sensible thing to do would be to go to bed at a reasonable hour, I can’t sleep.  My brain and body seem to have adjusted to the work-night schedule, and I’m sleepy at 7 a.m. instead of 10 p.m.  Perhaps it will not surprise you to know that my children don’t really care.

*Amelia Bedelia is back in fashion now, right?  Or does she just never go out of style?  Or am I the only one who knows what I’m talking about?

My Head Hurts

This week Raisin told me, “I’m tired of being a big sister.  When Orange and Apple get big, maybe they’ll go live somewhere else.”

In the good news column, this explains her behavior* of late, and it has taken us almost 2 years to get to this point.

In the bad news column, this sucks.

Where’d I put that copy of Siblings Without Rivalry?

*Whine.  Argue.  Disobey.  Yell.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.